After three days of often-heated debate, 14 parties combined into the National Opposition Union, known as UNO, wrangled out a ticket that balances the staunchly conservative Chamorro with a moderate vice-presidential candidate, Virgilio Godoy, president of the center-left Independent Liberal Party.

The slate appeared to offer a strong ticket to oppose the re-election candidacy of President Daniel Ortega in the national elections scheduled for Feb. 25.

But the coalition team will face an uphill battle against the well- organized Sandinistas and five centrist parties that are fielding separate candidates and who will split badly-needed votes from anti-Sandinista voters.

Chamorro, 60, publisher of the opposition newspaper La Prensa, is a widely-respected figure in Nicaragua, and her high profile will help dispel the opposition`s divided and stodgy image.

Her husband, publisher Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, was shot down by gunmen in 1978, fueling public suport for the Sandinista-led insurrection that overthrew dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

She was a member of the civilian junta that took power in July 1979, but quit the next year. Since then, she has used La Prensa to mount an increasingly bitter campaign against the Marxist Sandinistas.

Government censors shut down La Prensa several times in retaliation, for periods as long as 15 months.

Chamorro suffers from an acute bone disease and is not expected to be able to mount an active campaign.

Godoy, 55, was labor minister under the Sandinista government from 1979 until 1984. He is considered a skillful campaigner, but his party has been rocked by financial scandals and divisions in the past year.

Recent polls have shown a Chamorro candidacy trailing the Sandinistas. The latest poll, commissioned by an opposition newsweekly, showed Ortega leading Chamorro by 38 percent to 17 percent.

The UNO`s election platform, approved by consensus last weekend, offers a grab-bag collection of promises, offering to expand the Sandinistas` land- reform policies while returning expropriated farms to their former owners.

UNO`s best campaign weapon will be the nation`s collapsing economy, which last year saw 36,000 percent inflation and plunged most Nicaraguans into severe poverty.

The Sandinistas are expected to accuse the opposition of wanting to roll back revolutionary social reforms, and of being subservient to the United States.